


What's Left Before

by posiemania



Series: What We Had Before [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M, I'm so sorry, Soldier AU, actually no they're fudged a lot, ages are fudged a little bit, girl pretends to be a boy, no i'm not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:44:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6272116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posiemania/pseuds/posiemania
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened between them that led to Change the Fates' Design.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Left Before

"Luke Jackson, sir,” she said, the lie rolling off her tongue with ease. She’d had a lot of practice with it. Reynolds grinned at her, seemingly at ease with the “man” standing before him. “Let’s send these redcoats back where they came from,” he replied. She nodded and they joined the throng of soldiers in the camp.

-

It should’ve been impossible to be found by anyone she knew. Peter had sworn not to tell - she’d had to ask him to help her pretend more successfully - and no one else knew where she’d gone, yet here she was. Summoned in front of the one man who could and would destroy what she’d been working for so long at.

Her father.

“Lucy. Elizabeth. Jefferson,” he hissed. They were alone in the office, thank goodness, but she knew there wasn’t much time. “Papa, please,” she whispered back. “I want to do this.”

“You could be killed! Or worse!”

Lucy reached across the desk and squeezed his hand. “I want to do this,” she said again. “Please trust me.”

There was silence from him for a long time. Too long, long enough she started to worry about being caught. Finally, he simply nodded. “Be careful. I don’t want to bury another child.”

-

When she had the time and energy, she managed to bathe late at night or before dawn, trusting the cover of darkness to hide her. This time, though, it wasn’t enough, and she found Reynolds staring at her in shock. As she pulled her shirt back over her head, he turned and started walking back to the camp. To report her, no doubt. She raced after him as soon as she was dressed. “James,” she called, not bothering to disguise her voice now, “James, wait.”

He paused and turned. “I’m not going to report you,” he told her, his voice low. “You do good work. If you get caught, I’m going to deny knowing this.”

She nodded and trusted him.

In retrospect, she shouldn’t have.

-

YOUNGEST JEFFERSON A SOLDIER?  
The headline screamed up at her from where it laid on the table. She winced and turned to Father, but he was already shaking his head. “You leave for France tomorrow. I don’t know how long you’ll be staying.”

Lucy wanted to argue, wanted to fight to stay, but he was right. She needed to go. On her way to pack, she picked up the paper to read.

Reynolds had told; it wasn’t as surprising as it might have been. It was foolish of her to believe he wouldn’t. He had no reason not to. What was surprising was her winding up here, in front of his house. She’d paid him a visit as Luke before, but she’d never come as herself.

“Lucy,” he said when he opened the door. It was different from how he’d said Luke. Luke was always said with a tone of affectionate exasperation for the younger soldier; Lucy was said in a soft, gentle, breathless kind of way that stole her breath too, straight from her lungs. “How could you?” she asked, and his face fell. “It was an accident,” he replied. “I didn’t mean to-”

“I’m going to France,” she announced. “And I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

He stared at her and it felt like time stood still around them, and she felt her stomach drop, and then he pulled her inside the house.

-

Years later, she didn’t regret her choices. There was no sense in regretting the past. It was true, though, that sometimes she wished she hadn’t married the man she had, that she hadn’t left America, that she hadn’t slept with a married man - well. Maybe she did regret her choices.

But that was only human.

**Author's Note:**

> I really, really wanted to add this. For clarity.


End file.
